`Myst' Muse Leaves Game Company / Robyn Miller developing film ideas with new firm

Laura Evenson, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published
4:00 am PST, Thursday, March 5, 1998

Robyn Miller, the artistic genius behind the wildly successful computer game "Myst" and its sequel "Riven," is leaving Cyan, the company he and his older brother Rand built.

The decision to leave the computer game company "grew mostly out of the realization that interactive or nonlinear gaming disallowed telling a story as well as a story can be told in a movie," said Miller by phone from his rural home near Spokane, Wash.

Miller, 31, and three other former Cyan colleagues, including his younger brother, Ryan, are working on two film projects in the basement of his home. He plans to relocate the new company, called Land of Point, to Seattle or San Francisco by August.

Miller has not signed with a movie studio. "We want to take this as far as we can on our own before it goes into production, so it has a better chance of turning out to be the thing we originally envision," he said.

Miller is looking forward to the move to an urban area. "That's where we'll find some of the creative talent we need to do a project like this," he said, adding that he'll enjoy all those amenities he now does without, including "lots of bookstores and the zoo."

He may be taking some cues from the zoo, based on his description of the more evolved of the two film projects.

This work will be computer generated and will "include characters that can really express emotion," he said. "I want something that looks like a mix between a human and a primate, but mammoth in size. The dinosaurs from Jurassic Park look intelligent, but they also are more animal-like. I think those two things -- the human and large-creature elements -- can come together a bit more." The only similarity to "Myst" and "Riven" is that the story is set in a fantasy world that looks odd yet is also familiar.

He added that the film will include "a human being who comes onto the scene and a catalyst that brings about conflict. I want to take people on an adventure while getting to something deeper and more personal that will grow out of a conflict of character."

Rand Miller, 38, was en route home from London and could not be reached yesterday. Tony Fryman, project manager on "Riven," said Cyan plans to continue developing the "Myst" and "Riven" worlds found in computer games and three novels. Cyan is exploring the development of more novels, video games and even a movie.

Robyn's departure from Cyan was not unexpected, and it does not rule out his working on projects at Cyan, Fryman said.